... and that video demonstrates just how utterly oversized pickup trucks have become.

The Tracker is a bad case of “just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should”.

Set your expectations accordingly, and it’s fine. I don’t understand why people think a now 20+ year old minivan should be comparable to a recently designed sports coupe.

Well - if you really want a vehicle that will spend more time on the lift than on the road, perhaps. 

Rear visibility was fine (for a van). Handling? It’s a minivan - its handling was no better (or worse) than most of its contemporaries.

The 90s era Chryslers were absolute crapcans. I don’t care if they “had moar power” or not - they were notorious for shredding their transmissions under load ... among other problems.

The interior returns to the uncluttered, simple interior of the ‘90 Civic that I had years ago. It’s not fussy, it discards some of the more bizarro experiments they did over the subsequent years (especially the hideous “split dash” they did at one point).

It’s a _MINIVAN_ - as long as it gets up to speed reasonably, that’s all I expect. The BRZ has pretensions of being a sports coupe - very different class of vehicle, different expectations.

Price alone makes this a hard ND.

It might come to market, but I don’t know too many people who are looking for a vehicle that looks like a refugee from an 80s sci-fi movie.

Every wannabe in Silicon Valley uses that term. It drives me absolutely nuts because inevitably “disruptor” means “take a perfectly workable solution and do something stupid with it because it’s different”.  

That will get you a lot of parts ... not necessarily coherently an F-104

Using a high altitude, high speed craft designed as an interceptor for low altitude ground support is a very good way to get known as “the widow maker”.

TBH, I’m surprised nobody has suggested an old Dodge Dakota. Plenty of them around, lots of parts, plenty of 4x4s out there ... lots of ground clearance, 4 door cabs, reasonable (but not huge) cargo beds ... and they’re selling for $4-5K CAD ...

By today’s standards, these were shitboxes, yes.

Pre-’86 (no centre mount taillight)

Yes - they aren’t anything to write home about.  

Depends on where you are. Where I am, you don’t see the things at all until there’s a winter storm. Then they get hauled out because they’re so damned basic.

The Lada Niva was actively sold in Canada for the better part of a decade. There’s a lot of them still around - mostly hanging out on farms and acreages doing duty as “really bad weather beaters”.

When the Camry became a default taxi, Toyota fell into the same trap GM was in through the mid 80s when the boxy Caprice was the default taxi. Fleet sales are addictive because they make the numbers look really good, but they’re a disincentive for investments that would hold the retail side up.